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It is time for a refresh of my ‘ktown’ package set. KDE 5_15.12 has been uploaded, containing the latest and greatest: Frameworks 5.17.0, Plasma 5.5.1and Applications 15.12.0.

To be honest, the compilation had already finished on tuesday but due to the hectic work circumstances moving toward the christmas break, I did not have time to install and test the new packages on my laptop. Today, that has changed, and here is the new batch. One small disappointment… the colorful icons used for the shutdown & logout widget are again replaced by the old colorless flat icons. A regression in my opinion. Die flat colorless icons die!

Anyway, don’t mind the ramblings of an old greybeard who yet has to pour his first drink of the holiday. On with the story.

What’s new in KDE 5_15.12?

Actually, I skipped a Plasma release! Starting with Plasma 5.5, the developers have adopted a more agile release schedule, meaning that after a point release (.0) there will be one or two fast bugfix updates (.1 and .2) followed by further updates with a slightly longer delay. I had built Plasma 5.5.0 and was about to apply the wrapping paper when several last-minute bugs were uncovered in the new Applications point release (15.12.0) which lead to delays in finalizing the repository because of all the patching and subsequent rebuilds. And by the time the Applications issues were resolved, I found the Plasma 5.5.1 sources ready so I archived my 5.5.0 packages and built 5.5.1 instead.

Support for legacy Xembed protocol is back – the blueman and HP systray icons are again visible without having to jump through hoops. The package “xembed-sni-proxy” which I added a few releases earlier, is gone from my repository because its code is now part of Plasma itself. Don’t forget to run “removepkg xembed-sni-proxy“!

Network Manager applet supports WPA2 Enterprise now.

A Breeze theme engine for GTK2+ applications was added.

You should be able to run a Wayland session now without too much pain and grinding of teeth. I did not test this myself, but some of you may want to tell me your experiences. Wayland is still a grey area to me, if not a black box.

Like the new Plasma, Applications 15.12.0 was also announced earlier this week. It is a step further in maturing the KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5) ports of the KDE application collection.

Highlight is the retirement of good old KSnapshot and the introduction of a brand new screenshot tool, Spectacle which should also be capable of capturing application menus and pop-ups.

Apart from KSnapshot, other packages have been removed as well in Applications 15.12: Amor, KTux (both unmaintained), and SuperKaramba (Plasma offers similar functionality).

And several artwork collections are no longer shipped: kde-base-artwork, kde-wallpapers and kdeartwork. Apparently “their content had not changed for a long time”.

I am wondering if I should re-add these removed packages as part of the “kde4” subset, like I already did with some of the other old stuff. Give me your opinion about the value of Amor, KTux, kde-base-artwork, kde-wallpapers and kdeartwork! I will re-add them when the demand is high.

And then there are the dependencies. I upgraded OpenAL, PyQt5, lmdb, added an updated sip package (i.e. newer than Slackware’s own), added the two aforementioned noto font packages and also added yet another new dependency for KWin: libxkbcommon.

I am also working on a new release of the Plasma 5 version of my Slackware Live Edition. It depends on whether I can get UEFI boot to work properly. That milestone will also become the “Beta 3″ release of my liveslak scripts. A link to the Plasma 5 Live ISO will be added to KDE’s Plasma 5 Live testing page, so that more people can get a taste of Slackware-current topped with Plasma 5.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

You can skip the remainder of the article if you already have my Plasma 5 installed and are familiar with the upgrade process. Otherwise, stay with me and read the rest.

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4”, “kde4-extragear”, “frameworks”, “kdepim”, “plasma”, “plasma-extra”, “applications” and “telepathy”.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_15.11. You will have to remove old KDE 4 packages manually. If you do not have KDE 4 installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_15.10 and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should work but feel free to send me improved instructions if needed (assuming in this example that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown_testing” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf“):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown_testing (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown_testing (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# removepkg xembed-sni-proxy ktux amor kde-base-artwork kde-wallpapers kdeartwork (they don’t exist in the repo anymore)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas that I do not want to repeat here, but if you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects such as LXQT which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my KDE 5 “testing” repository):

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

http://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/ (fast UK based mirror, run by Darren Austin – note that the hostname changed from “slackware.org.uk” to just “slackware.uk”), rsync URI: rsync://slackware.uk/people/alien-kde/

webster… does not have any relevance to this article does it?
If you installed Nvidia’s binary driver and upgraded xorg-server, you *must* re-install the driver.
And since there was a new kernel in slackware-current as well, you need to compile a new nvidia kernel module anyway.

Yes does not have any relevance to this article, I know :/ I saw ktown and I had to write it :/ Sorry – It’s not my first upgrade slackware, I know about recompile nvidia drivers etc. but it doesn’t change. xfce works good for example. Ok, doesn’t matter. ://

MiRacLe… “qt5-x11extras” is a sub-package split off the main qt5 package, used by non-Slackware distros.
However, Slackware does not split packages into sub-packages. The files you think you need are already contained in my qt5 package.

Yes I am aware of these two bugs and I think it is a pity that the stupid “I18n_plural_argument_missing” bug was not fixed before release.

KWin DEFINITELY crashing Eric. NOT from lack of libxkbcommon at proper version either. Might try a new QT build here, or just run openbox for my windowmanager for now. I suppose I might go with the proprietary nVidia driver for my old GeForce 8400 card too, or try Arn Exton’s kernel hack, but I want to keep things pure Slack when possible. You getting much other static about this yet?

It starts alright, just crashes frequently. I’m looking at similar cases with Plasma, dating back over the past year. I still want to see what happens with kernel 4.3.1, just to compaqre. I suspect its qt-5, where the bug abides.

Thanks for another great update.
There are a few minor issues with some of the packages:
kdenetwork-filesharing-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
kamera-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
krfb-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
kdegraphics-thumbnailers-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
kdesdk-thumbnailers-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
marble-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien
should be recompiled as the plugins directory is in the wrong place /usr/lib64/plugins instead of /usr/lib64/qt5/plugins. I guess that setting -DKDE_INSTALL_QTPLUGINDIR=”$(/usr/bin/kf5-config –qt-plugins)” in the build scripts will solve this problem.

kdepimlibs-15.12.0-x86_64-1alien.txz has an issue with the following header /usr/include/KF5/AkonadiCore/std_exception.h. In your package it includes “/usr/include/c++/5.2.0/exception” and this path does not exist anymore since upgrading to gcc 5.3.0 (it should point to 5.3.0).

So from the bug reports it looks like I have to rebuild some packages:
kdepimlibs
kdenetwork-filesharing
kamera
krfb
kdegraphics-thumbnailers
kdesdk-thumbnailers
marble
… and add baloo-widgets (no idea why that was missed).

I am waiting for Pat to provide some updates before I start recompiling those though – because I may end up having to recompile more than the above.

This is also the reason that I delayed a release of Beta3 of my Live Edition.

Fabio, perhaps you meant “kdenlive”?
I will not compile that, because it requires packages that I am not willing to add to my Plasma 5 repository (ffmpeg, mlt).
There’s lots of other sources in the “applications” source directory that I am also not compiling, because they depend on for instance pulseaudio, opencv etc.

startx fails with following errors:
kstartupconfig5 does not exist or fails
After clicking ok on above, several error messages show up in console:
/usr/bin/startkde line 23: /usr/lib64/qt5/bin/qtpaths: cannot execute binary file. Exec format error.

FYI, I rolled my compositor-> rendering backend setting back to XRender under Display and Monitor and that stopped all the weird crashing and garbage like transparent window decorations. I suspect that my old GeForce 8400 card might be causing the Open GL backends to puke. I’ll run for a day or 2 and see if things stabilize. You might tell other folks about this if they yelp about Kwin…. I KNEW something was up when Openbox worked, and Kwin kept crashing.

The regression in Ark is reported as a KDE bug and should be repaired eventually: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357057
The current solution is to install not just “unrar” but also “rar”.
Unfortunately Slackware does not ship either, so even when the bug is addressed and “rar” is no longer a requirement, we still face the missing “unrar”.
I am not going to add a unrar package to my ‘ktown’ repository because it has zero chance of getting added to Slackware, so please add your comments to the above bug report, stating that some distros are not shipping “unrar” either.

I’m not aware of any alternative of “unrar” for handling rar extraction. If they remove “unrar” support Ark no longer will be able to extract rar archives.
Building and installing “unrar” is not a big deal if someone needs to open rar files.

To make 15.12 work only with unrar, edit kerfuffle_clirar.desktop.cmake
and change line 13 from:
X-KDE-Kerfuffle-ReadWrite=true
to:
X-KDE-Kerfuffle-ReadWrite=false

Hi Emsi, I already updated the KDE bug report with a request to allow the unrar support in libarchive as an alternative to requiring unrar to be installed.
I will apply your small patch to ark and recompile it.

ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libdolphinprivate4.so.4.14.15: libbaloofiles.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libdolphinprivate4.so.4.14.15: libbaloowidgets.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libdolphinprivate4.so.4.14.15: libbaloopim.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libdolphinprivate4.so.4.14.15: libbalooqueryparser.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libdolphinprivate4.so.4.14.15: libbaloocore.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libkdeinit4_dolphin4.so: libbaloofiles.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libkdeinit4_dolphin4.so: libbaloowidgets.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libkdeinit4_dolphin4.so: libbaloopim.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libkdeinit4_dolphin4.so: libbalooqueryparser.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/lib64/libkdeinit4_dolphin4.so: libbaloocore.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/bin/dolphin4: libbaloowidgets.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/bin/dolphin4: libbaloofiles.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/bin/dolphin4: libbaloopim.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/bin/dolphin4: libbalooqueryparser.so.4 => not found
ldd /tmp/tmp.n635aC/usr/bin/dolphin4: libbaloocore.so.4 => not found

Upgrading to KDE 5_15.12 broke my sddm. I found this was compiled against icu4c-51.2 and not against icu4c-56.1 which i now have (through slackpkg). I got things solved by extracting the relevant files out of the ‘old’ packages, and putting them in /usr/lib64.

So I guess this package needs to build again too.

And thanks a lot for your continuous effort for improving our beloved distribution!

The 64bit sddm-qt5 package in my repository is already compiled against the new icu4c 56.1.
I do not have a 32bit OS running at the moment, so I can not verify the status of the 32bit sddm-qt5. Are you on 32bit Slackware?

Hi. I have KDE-5_15.07 installed and the README says I have to upgrade to KDE-5_15.09, remove some packages, and then upgrade to KDE-5_15.12. Where can I find the packages to upgrade to KDE-5_15.09 since the mirrors only provide the latest version of KDE(currently being KDE-5_15.12)? Thanks in advance!

Hi Eric, couple of issues here and there but great release again – thanks! I have one issue with the fonts – any way to get ttf oxygen-icons back? I have oxygen-sans in my font list but I’m not sure that is the same … Thunderbird’s looking like crap now! ; )

Robby – can’t tell… I have not yet used Thunderbird on Plasma 5 but I will have a look.
I decided against keeping the oxygen TTF fonts because of the additional size plus they should no longer matter, but if you prefer these fonts there is no reason not to keep them in.
I will have the oxygen-fonts package back in the next ktown update.

Hi thanks, I was able to make it work but I am having problems with dolphin – it does not start at all and it says it is missing libkdeinit4_dolphin. I saw other people had similar problems so I was wondering whether they have found the fix? I could not re-compile kde-baseapps because the SlackBuild script throws an error and does not execute till the point where it compiles the kde-baseapps package.

After that, examine your /var/log/packages/ directory, find any old package of mine that does no longer belong (or read the README to help you decide which packages are no longer needed).
In particular, make sure that you upgrade to the Slackware versions of some of the “deps” packages that I still had in 5_15.07 (I think that xapian-core is the only one).

I am so sorry I made it work now. I was originally installing the pre-compiled packages exactly as you said. The problem was that I forgot to include the flag that deletes the old files when I was doing the rsync from the mirror, so in the end I was installing the old version of the kde together with the new one. Apologies

How nice is this job you carry on regarding to providing us these previews for Slackware community! Congrats.

I tried a fresh installation of Slackware64-current, but I only installed the bare minimum packages from KDE4 as you suggest. And after that I installed the packages for Plasma5, from your ktown repository. Everything else is running fine up to now.

But now I cannot log into the plasma shell if I setup init default to runlevel 4.

CarlosNihelton you need to give more information if you want an answer. What is (not) happening when you boot the computer to runlevel 4? Does the graphical login manager start or not? Does it accept your account/password or not? Can you see (parts of) the initialization of the Plasma Desktop or not? Etcetera.

Thank you so much for all your work on the repositories. I’m now in the process of discovering Slackware after a long time using Debian and Arch.
Last weekend I installed the latest Plasma and Framework builds from ktown. Overall everything went OK, though I surely missed something in the process, as I explain below:

– kmix is at version 5.12, but in KDE it shows as version 4.14.
– there is something wrong with the i18n files at logout. Message”plural arguments missing” shows in place of the usual logout message.

As it is the first time I install KF5 in Slackware, I probably forgot or missed something, though I read the provided documentation.
Has anyone ever noticed the same issues mentioned above?

– Kmix is built againt kdelibs 4.14, which is why, is seems, it shows as KDE 4.14. I guess that being accustomed to another distribution made me forget that I should use “plasma-pa” with pulseaudio 7 in KF5, not Kmix, though it works. For full integration, I will figure out how to compile plasma-pa.

– regarding the i18n errors, I did not see that this had already been discussed in this thread and that there is a bug already filed.

I guess I have replied to my own questions… Sorry about that.
Thanks for all this good stuff.

# KDE4 support: complete
# KF5 support is in work. A build will be triggered by adding “-DKMIX_KF5_BUILD=1” to the cmake call.
# Status: Build fails on kmixdevicemanager.cpp , which does #include
# Unfortunately Solid currently has no Audiointerface in KF5, thus it pulls the #include from
# KDE4, which leads to error: ‘AudioInterface’ is not a member of ‘Solid::DeviceInterface’

Which means that KMix is still being built as a KDE4 application and not a KF5 application. All KDE4 applications get the version number of kdelibs which is 4.14.15.

tuxolinuxt, since pulseaudio is not part of Slackware, the plasma-pa sources have not been compiled into a package. If you want to compile it you’ll also have to compile and install pulseaudio yourself.

Just for information, the plasma-pa module was built successfully on my system. The only thing I had to do was to set the cmake options to set the install prefix (/usr) and the lib path (/usr/lib64, in my case) and to use the qt system paths, otherwise it would not work.
Hope it helps someone else to install it if needed 🙂

Hi Michelino – looks like I accidentally archived it together with the dolphin package when I rebuilt that last one.
I am restoring the dolphin-plugins package from my archive now and re-adding it to the repository.
Thanks for spotting it.

The “deps/extra-cmake-modules-5.16.0-i486-1alien” should have been removed and I will do so. There is a package in deps as well as in frameworks because some people who recompile from scratch need the extra-cmake-modules for other packages in deps but it would not be built until you get to the frameworks otherwise.

Eric, if you’re still having trouble compiling QT5, please send me your Slackbuild of it and I’ll do it for you. My old HP Proliant server, while not THAT powerful, has better CPU cores, registered ECC RAM etc and normally knocks out QT5 in under a night, and does it right.

I need to be able to compile and recompile in case of errors so ‘outsourcing’ the compilation process has never been an option.
For instance, I need to recompile qt5 and phonon for the new pulseaudio but I ran into unexpected build failure which I had to investigate during a series of partial recompilations.

Calendar

audacity: updated to 2.4.1 (Slackware-current only). Depends on jack2, ladspa_sdk, vamp-plugin-sdk, and wxGTK3. Today it's 20 years ago that the first version (0.8) of Audacity was released! wxGTK3: updated to 3.0.5.1. Also added gtk2 components.

Here is KDE 5_20.05 for Slackware, consisting of the KDE Frameworks 5.70.0, Plasma 5.18.5 and Applications 20.04.1. All this on top of Qt 5.13.2. The ktown updates are targeting Slackware -current only. Upgrading from the previous 5_20.04 is straight-forward. Read the accompanying README file for detailed installation and upgrade instructions! Note: the KDE 5_20.05 'latest' […]

current/compat32-tools-3.9-noarch-14alien.tgz: to massconvert32.sh added a/libpwquality. current/slackware64-compat32: Refreshed the *compat32 packages. Note that as of now, Slackware is PAM-ified and the multilib repository has 3 new 'compat32' packages for cracklib, libpwquality and pam.